Around Baikal 2003

Days 10-17

Day 10 -- June 10, 2003
Anyone who has traveled to northern latitudes and spent time near the water, be it lake, river or swamp, has some story or another about bugs.

Black flies, mosquitoes, noseums, sand flies, gnats, call them what you will, they invade, swarm, crawl, sting, bite, suck and infect. And, at least in legend, make grown men sob like babies.

Having now spent 10 days living on the beaches and traveling the waters of Lake Baikal, my days of doubting or disbelieving such tales are now over.

There are literally blankets of bugs here and, in fact, it might do better to say there is one blanket and it has stretched continuously for the last week and a half. These voracious insects, crawl upon and cling to everything -- solid, liquid or gas.

The lakes surface is alive with skittering, swimming, twitching, critters. Every rock and bit of wood along the beach is a cavern, a condo, for not dozens, but hundreds of vibrating vermin who skull or flitter away when we walk by. Within 60 seconds of landing on shore and climbing from our kayaks, one thousand new residents move in, on, and under the boats and their payload.

To take 3 steps, is to squash perhaps a hundred lives. But, never mind. These corpses are at once carted off and composted to strengthen the herd.

To inhale is to take in a cocktail of one part air and 2 parts airborne bugs and, then hack, cough and spit them clear for the next round. This thick of an insect population, I never dreamed possible. And, we have only just begun our journey northward.

Day 12 -- June 12, 2003
For the past 24 hours we've been camped out on a spit of sand 75 yards wide by 5 miles long. Baikal is to our west and an inland lake 3 miles wide lies to our east.

A settlement lines the smaller lake's Eastern shore, though it can't be seen from here. In fact, nothing can be seen beyond a quarter mile radius as the sky is thick with a lead gray haze.

The sun, a dark red orb, just like the one we cycled under while Montana burned during the 2000 summer, appears for a few hours in the afternoon. By 6 p.m., about 4 hours before it actually sets, it is gone again.

Local fishermen have told us that forests on both sides of Baikal are on fire and we have no way of knowing exactly from where this haze has drifted.

Our last clear day, the last day we were able to solar charge our batteries, and, let the sun warm us after our post paddle swim, was day 5 (June 5, 2003.)

Tomorrow we head north into the Selenga River Delta, Baikal's largest tributary -- delivering 40% of the lake's inflowing water.

The Selenga is a 30 mile wide maze of swamps and meandering waterways. With no landing along its foggy outer edge, our plan is to paddle upstream far enough to reach the main fork, then turn, and ride the current out to it's Northern exit. With luck we will be on the lake again in 2 days.

Location: N 51 degrees, 54' 41.2" E 106 degrees, 06' 23.9'

Day 16 -- June 16, 2003

Ivan the Buryat fisherman, massaged Brandon's back with such vigor I thought surely he would draw blood. I sat nearby cleaning the last remnants of our 7 fish feast from my bowl. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Surgey, the master chef of our feast, watching me and laughing as I licked my fingers clean, rubbed my belly, and announced, "Kusyne" (delicious).

The two fishermen had mysteriously appeared at our camp two hours earlier and had been fussing over us ever since. They retreated precisely at 8 P.M. As we stood in our deserted camp at the mouth of the Selenga River Delta, their presence hung as heavy as the haze and their words rang in my ears, "do not try the inside passage," they warned us in their native tongue.

Brandon and I were convinced, if these angels disguised as fishermen, said go outside, we would surely abide.

6:45 A.M. the following morning we paddled out into a haze so thick you could reach out and touch it. Within 3 minutes of shoving off, every argument we had made against traversing the outside of the delta stood up and screamed, 'You should've gone the other way, fools.'

We kayaked in water so shallow, our paddles scraped the bottom with every stroke. When water gave way to a sand bar we dragged our boats. We headed straight out to sea using our compass for guidance. Until not even a shadow of land was visible -- yet the shallows persisted. Winds were building from the West. My barometer was dropping and, in my mind I was remembering the promises I'd made to my parents, "of course we will be careful; yes, we will hug the shore; no, we won't take any unnecessary risks."

Three miles into the 35-40 mile paddle, Brandon's voice snapped me out of my trance. "We need to rethink this," he shouted over the wind. I paddled to his boat.

As we sat side by side on the outskirts of the largest Delta, of the largest lake in the world, we came up with a plan.

Location: N 52 degrees, 35' 09.1" E 107 degrees, 14' 41.9" (approx. 30 miles North of Selenga River Delta)

Day 17 -- June 17, 2003

Fortunately we stored the coordinates of our previous camp in the GPS before we set out. So, we U-turned and an hour of paddling later we glided back into the muddy shallows where the morning had begun.

The new plan was to do what we had originally intended: head into the swamp against the current; taking every right turn we could find, until we reached a point as vague in our minds as it was on our map. There, we would take our first, and only, left turn and it would be all down stream from then on. Turning too soon would shoot us out to no man's land -- which we had just escaped from.

The entire traverse would have been a no-brainer if the cold war era charts had included some form of coordinates. But, these, we learned, had been left out for "strategic" reasons.

At any rate, as the morning wind gained strength and, my mind raced with warnings about being lost in the swampy maze before us. We uttered our final prayers to Burkhan, pointed our bows upstream and paddled in.

Location: N 52 degrees, 42' 33.8" E 107 degrees, 32' 35.2" (approx. 50 miles North of the Selenga River Delta)

Read more about the journey in the introduction